308 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



TO MISS SALLIE GARY 

 Hotel Normandiey Paris y September 29, 1895 

 I CANNOT tell you how delightful my stay with the 

 Swiss family has been. It was rather agitating to go, 

 for a whole w^orld of young people has grown up 

 (and indeed they have come into the world) since 

 I was at Montagny in 1859 — and most of those I 

 knew there are gone. I felt therefore a little strange 

 and as if they would feel me to be more or less out 

 of the circle. It was never so for a moment. I felt 

 completely at home and as if I were a member of 

 the household at once. 



The old Montagny house is quaint and picturesque 

 as ever. It is a family centre, and while I was there no 

 day passed without members of the family dropping 

 in to spend the day. And then we all dined together, 

 and the afternoon was spent in the shady garden 

 full of flowers, where the tables stand always ready 

 for tea or coffee, and where the young people were 

 gay and full of fun, and the older people quietly 

 talked over memories of the past, aroused in part no 

 doubt by my coming which brought the family to- 

 gether perhaps in greater numbers than usual. At 

 all events I felt myself quite at home with young 

 and old. I shall tell you much more about it when 

 we can talk instead of writing. But I am so very glad 

 that I was able to go. 



And now here we are in Paris; the personal things 

 I so wished to do, and which seemed to me to have 

 a certain responsibility, as my visits to the English 



